£500m investment in town centre set for approval

An artist's impression of how the new Nicholsons site could look

Plans to demolish a shopping centre and replace it with a residential complex go before the council tonight.

London property developers Areli, submitted initial proposals for a £500 million redevelopment of the Nicholsons shopping centre in Maidenhead over five years ago.

The plans include 850 new flats with spaces for shops on the ground floor but only half of the retail outlets currently operating at Nicholsons would fit in to the new complex.

Complaints about the number of parking spaces have been raised but the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead council says it is making improvements to the local public transport network to make up for it.

Maidenhead's Nicholsons shopping centre is well past its sell-by-date. Back in the 1980s and 1990s it was popular with locals but in recent years the emergence of bigger, newer competitors like Reading's Oracle and Bracknell's The Lexicon shopping centre have seen it fall out of favour.

The Royal Borough's own planners say it's time to green light the plans so now it's all down to a group of just seven individual councillors to make a decision which will have a major impact on how Maidenhead does, or doesn't, develop over the coming years.

If approved, the new centre will have a very different feel from the current one. For one thing the new version would be very much a residential complex, rather than a predominantly retail one, as is the case now.

Most of the flats will be one bedroom apartments and 100 of them will be earmarked for the over 75s only.

One of the biggest sticking points has been what some see as a distinct lack of parking spaces.

Hard Edge clothes shop owner Charlie is concerned about what he says is a lack of car parking spaces in the new scheme

Charlie is the owner of Hard Edge clothes shop and does not believe the provision for customer parking is adequate.

"Of those 475 spaces I believe it is, they've actually said 101 of those spaces will be available to the general public and of that, 25 will be for people with disabilities which will only allow 75 car park spaces for the entirety of the shoppers in Maidenhead," he said.

The council says that creating new open spaces and seating areas where people can relax, chat and have a coffee will help make Maidenhead town centre a more attractive destination.

Environmental groups want more to be done to limit the impact of the new development, but while many locals are worried about how many more apartments will spring up in their town, only 21 individuals and groups have raised their concerns officially.

For the seven men and women on the planning committee tonight is crunch time. The fate of the proposed £500 million Nicholsons centre redevelopment scheme is in their hands and their hands alone.